


First Frost

by RedEris



Series: Morning Glory [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, gratuitious gardening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-02-01 02:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21337549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedEris/pseuds/RedEris
Summary: A golden fall moment in which everything changes for Hawke yet again.
Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke
Series: Morning Glory [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538191
Kudos: 11





	First Frost

**Author's Note:**

> This follows the storyline of Morning Glory and Three Goats, and was inspired by cool fall afternoons in the garden.

First frost filled Jeannie Hawke with bittersweet melancholy and a particular sense of peace. First frost blackened the leaves and bent the stems, but though there were a million little deaths around her, the land itself was only readying for sleep. Her beautiful, bushy summer greens were suddenly a withered mess, but the carrots and rutabagas grew sweeter underground. The trees were red and yellow, their crowns aflame in the sun. The sunlight itself was almost palpable it was so rich, thick like honey, and there was a sharp smell of cold nights and approaching snow that she’d missed in Kirkwall. The smell of evenings by the fire and roasted apples and a slowing down and gathering in, things that had their essential place in the cycle, just as she did.

The Blight had brushed this land, ten years ago. It was why they’d come here, after Kirkwall. There had been so many things there that she couldn’t heal, but this bit of land, perhaps, she could. There were worse places, much worse--places that would sicken any plant or animal that ventured there for lifetimes to come. But where life could gain a hold, life could heal.

Jeannie pulled the weeds that cold would not kill, saving herself the trouble come spring. While her body moved, her mind was free to wander. It was a temporary peace, this, and a painfully limited one. Outside of their little world of goats and gardens and children, war raged. It cut into their peace sometimes, when one of the mage children woke from nightmares. Fenris would get that faraway look after every letter from Varric or secondhand broadsheet that made it to the cabin. The children couldn’t spend their lives here; they’d need more than this little meadow in the woods could give them. But she wanted to selfishly cling to it all for a little longer.

“Auntie!” Finna, the eldest of the mage children, called from the cabin. Jeannie straightened up, stretching her back.

“What is it?”

“The baby’s crying for milk, and Liesie’s knocked over the bean crock.”

Jeannie sighed and turned, and as she did, virulent green light spilled over everything. It lit Finna’s face as she stared openmouthed at the sky. Jeannie turned in dreamlike slowness, and saw the distant slash of the Rift just as the concussion reached them--a sudden, indescribable rushing _push_ of wild magic, a boom somewhere below the level of hearing.

Ridiculously, the first thought that wandered by was that she wished the peace had lasted long enough to get the garlic planted.


End file.
